Significant Digits For Wednesday, May 10, 2017

1 week

U.S. army private Chelsea Manning has confirmed through a tweet that she will be released from prison next week. Then-President Barack Obama commuted Manning’s sentence in January. [BBC]

3.7 years

President Trump “terminated” FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday. The official reasoning for the sacking had to do with Comey’s handling of the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email usage. But many members of Congress suspect the firing had more to do with the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 presidential campaign and potential ties to Trump associates. Comey served as director for 3.7 years, the shortest tenure since J. Edgar Hoover did it for 48 years. [FiveThirtyEight]

6 months

Recreational marijuana goes on sale in Nevada on July 1, six months ahead of the scheduled deadline. [KTVN]

3.4 million retweets

There is a new “most popular tweet.” Carter Wilkerson, a teenager in Nevada, asked Wendy’s how many retweets he needed to get free chicken nuggets for a year. Wendy’s said 18 million. And so far, 3.4 million Twitter users have obliged. That’s well short of the bar, but Wendy’s caved and gave Wilkerson his nugs. This means some kid now has the most-ever retweets thanks to an advertisement. Hell is empty and all the devils are… back and crispier than ever! If this gets one favorable email response I will get a year’s supply of Ocean Meat from Arby’s! [The Verge]

$90 million

Self-claimed valuation of Fyre Media — the company behind Fyre Festival, the would-be music festival in the Bahamas that left concertgoers stranded — according to one of the several lawsuits that have cropped up around the absurd incident. [Bloomberg]

$1.5 billion

John H. Thompson has resigned as the director of the U.S. Census Bureau. His departure comes as the 2020 decennial census approaches and worries about funding for the survey abound. Funding ramps up for the census as each decade comes to a close, but that funding is increasing more slowly this time. [The Washington Post, FiveThirtyEight]